Page 3090 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 2013
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you can take the perspective that those opposite are taking, which really is the low road politically—the unambitious but easy road; the cheap shot. They ask the questions even when they know that they have got it wrong. They assert that there is no engineering study when there is one. They assert there is no economic analysis when there is. They assert a whole range of things that they know to be untrue.
Their obligation as elected representatives should be to contribute to an informed debate, to a considered debate about big questions that our city faces—about growth, population, sustainability and the development of real public transport for our city. That is their obligation as elected representatives. But instead they are just playing partisan politics.
It is beneath them. It is beneath them to lift themselves up into a debate about how this city should grow and develop into the future, where infrastructure investment decisions should be made, how we create a more sustainable future for our children, their children after them and their children after them.
That is where they fall down. That is where they fail, because they have no imagination. They have no capacity, Madam Deputy Speaker. They have absolutely no capacity to lift themselves up above that base, crass, simplistic, political debate. But that is exactly what we expect of them.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson!
MR CORBELL: That is what we know of them and we will respond to each and every criticism that they make. We will deliver this project. We will deliver this project. Cities face turning points. This is our city’s turning point. Do we build for the future? Do we invest in infrastructure for the future? Do we create a more sustainable and just future for our citizens? Or do we just play the politics? This government has an agenda. It has a vision and it is going to get on with the task of implementing it.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.22): The lecture from the minister who was sacked as minister for planning because he could not deliver—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me, Mr Smyth, you are taking your second ten minutes?
MR SMYTH: I am taking my second ten minutes, thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. We got the lecture from the minister who said he would deliver Gungahlin Drive extension on time and on budget and took it from about $55 million to close to $200 million and six or seven years late. We got the lecture from the minister who delivered a prison that was going to be good for 20 years—“We have capacity for 20 or 25 years in our prison”—yet in this year’s budget there is money to do the design work to extend the prison, which is at capacity. And of course, we got the lecture from the minister responsible for the debacle of the emergency services headquarters where the Auditor-General said the original scope was about $13 million and it is expected to cross the $75 million mark. He dares to lecture us. It is preposterous!
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